To Wordsworth

To Wordsworth Literary Elements

Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View

a first-person speaker addressing Wordsworth through apostrophe

Form and Meter

sonnet, iambic pentameter, ABABCDCD EE FGFG rhyme scheme

Metaphors and Similes

Alliteration and Assonance

Alliteration - rock-built refuge

Irony

The title of the poem is at odds with the poem's beginning anaphora. Wordsworth is alive, but Shelley writes as though he has perished.

Genre

Romantic Poem, Sonnet

Setting

1816 Britain

Tone

betrayed, admonishing

Protagonist and Antagonist

Protagonist - Wordsworth at his best; Antagonist - Wordsworth when too focused on overarching themes

Major Conflict

Shelley is torn between his admiration for the Wordsworth who wrote poems like "Ode: Intimations of Immortality" and the "new" Wordsworth he deplores.

Climax

In lines 10-12, the speaker declares that Wordsworth, having abandoned his dedication to truth and liberty, "shouldst cease to be."

Foreshadowing

Understatement

Allusions

Metonymy and Synecdoche

Personification

Hyperbole

Wordsworth is not truly deceased, as Shelley at times appears hyperbolically to claim

Onomatopoeia

"winter's midnight roar"